Talks between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and stakeholders on net neutrality fell apart…amidst reports that Google and Verizon had made a private deal over the management of Internet traffic.

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Net neutrality is a priority for AALL because law librarians are providers, creators and users of digital information, and it is up to law libraries to ensure that everyone has equal access to the information they need.

For background information, please read our Issue Brief. And make sure you’ve subscribed to our Advocacy Listserv, where you’ll receive alerts and updates on net neutrality in our monthly Washington E-Bulletin!

Adam Green at Huffington Post:

“[Google] cut a deal with the bad guys. And they’re now asking the public to accept two Internet experiences — a great experience for the old Internet that will soon cease to exist, and an experience filled with discrimination and lack of a level playing field for the entire future of the Internet.”

Joel Kelsey at Free Press:

“Google and Verizon can try all they want to disguise this deal as a reasonable path forward, but the simple fact is this framework, if embraced by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, would transform the free and open Internet into a closed platform like cable television. This is much worse than a business arrangement between two companies. It’s a signed-sealed-and-delivered policy framework with giant loopholes that blesses the carving up of the Internet for a few deep-pocketed Internet companies and carriers.”

Until the federal government makes a commitment to free public access to federal court documents, we have RECAP, a project developed by the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton University.  According to the CITP:

RECAP is an extension (or “add on”) for the Firefox web browser that improves the PACER experience while helping PACER users build a free and open repository of public court records. RECAP users automatically donate the documents they purchase from PACER into a public repository hosted by the Internet Archive. And RECAP saves users money by alerting them when a document they are searching for is already available from this repository. RECAP also makes other enhancements to the PACER experience, including more user-friendly file names.

There is a more detailed description on the RECAP site, as well as a cool video of how it works.

Recently, the CITP made significant improvements to RECAP, most importantly adding search functionality.  At the RECAP Archive, you can search all of the documents that have been gathered by the RECAP Firefox extension. There are simple and advanced search options, and the latter allows you to narrow by court, date, docket number, and so on. All absolutely free of charge. Your results will include the full docket sheet for a case, alerting and allowing you to acquire any documents that are on PACER, but not yet included in RECAP.

Other cool features are the option to set up an RSS feed or e-mail alert for your search so that you can track a particular case. The system also allows you to add tags and connect related cases.

If you are a PACER user, I strongly encourage you to download RECAP so that you can add more documents to the database. If you are looking for court filings, check RECAP and you might save yourself some money.

IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED: Call your Senators and urge them to vote NO on Coburn Amendment No. 4331.

On Thursday June 17, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) offered a package of amendments to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010 which, according to him, would pay for implementing all the provisions of the bill. One of the amendments would drastically cut funding for executive branch publishing and printing. In introducing this particular amendment, Coburn stated that it would reduce the costs of government documents by $4.4 billion over 10 years. He went on to say that “Nobody reads these. They are all available online.”

While AALL embraces the move to broader public access to government information through the Internet, we also recognize the reality—that even today, much of the agency information we need is not available online. In addition, recent studies demonstrate that many segments of our citizenry still lack access to computers and/or broadband.

The Coburn amendment reducing executive branch publishing would have a negative impact on the cost effective printing and binding services procured competitively by the Government Printing Office from thousands of small business printers throughout the country. It would also impact the distribution of important print titles through the Federal Depository Library Program.

Sen. Coburn’s amendment could effectively eliminate the publication of almost every print title currently being produced by federal agencies and departments. Among its many ill-conceived mandates is one would tediously require every publishing entity to list at the beginning of each publication distributed to the public: the name of the publishing agency; the total number of copies printed; the collective cost of producing and printing all of the copies; and the name of the publishing entity.

Sen. Coburn simply fails to understand the printing process and the importance of printing and distributing important publications for use by the American public through the FDLP.

Immediate Action Needed:
Time is of the essence because the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010 may be voted on as early as tomorrow. Please call your Senators today through the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and urge them to vote NO on Coburn Amendment No. 4331 related to executive branch printing and publishing.

The session is available at no cost to AALL members and will teach you the skills you need to prove to state officials the need to authenticate and preserve online legal information, and make sure they understand the vital role of your state’s public law libraries. Among the speakers will be CALL’s own Keith Ann Stiverson, of the Chicago-Kent College of Law Library, who served as the AALL Observer to the NCCUSL Drafting Committee on the Authentication and Preservation of State Electronic Legal Materials Act.  She will provide an update on the draft act.

The Government Relations Office has been seeking volunteers in every state to form working groups to promote equitable, no-fee, permanent public access to authentic online legal information. This year’s Advocacy Training will provide the opportunity for our volunteers to come together and share the challenges they face, as well as their success stories. To volunteer to participate in your state’s working group and/or register for the Advocacy Training, please contact Advocacy Communications Assistant Emily Feldman by June 1.

Some of the issues we have been monitoring are open government, privacy, network neutrality, copyright law, and the authentication of government-hosted legal resources. While we address some national issues, we focus our attention on the Chicago area, in particular the City of Chicago and the states of Illinois and Indiana. We also try to stay informed of the work of the AALL Government Relations Committee and the Government Relations Office and will occasionally re-post information and action alerts from those sources.

If you are at all interested in these issues (and we think you should be!) please bookmark this blog, email it to a friend/colleague, or add our RSS feed. And of course, we’d love getting your feedback in the comments about things you think we should be aware of and topics you want to see discussed in the future.